Expedition 39

Occurred 10 years ago

The new Veggie space botany research facility was installed to provide the Expedition 39 crew with a nutritious, appetizing food source and advance agriculture on and off the Earth. The crew also studied microgravity's affect on cellular genetic expression for improved drug treatments and the behavior of liquids and gases to develop higher quality consumer products.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Koichi Wakata, Alexander Skvortsov, Steve Swanson, Oleg Artemyev, Richard Mastracchio, Mikhail Tyurin

Launch

Nov. 7, 2013

Landing

May 13, 2014

-The official insignia of the Expedition 39 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Koichi Wakata, Commander
Alexander Skvortsov, Flight Engineer
Steve Swanson, Flight Engineer
Oleg Artemyev, Flight Engineer
Richard Mastracchio, Flight Engineer
Mikhail Tyurin, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

5/13/14 – Expedition 38/39 Land
4/25/14 – ISS Progress 53 Redock
4/23/14 – 53P First Undock
4/20/14 – SpaceX CRS-3 Capture
4/18/14 – SpaceX CRS-3 Launch
4/9/14 – ISS Progress 55 Launch/Dock
4/7/14 – ISS Progress 54 Undock
3/27/14 – Expedition 39/40 Dock
3/25/14 – Expedition 39/40 Launch

Spacewalks

Date: April 23, 2014
Duration: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Spacewalkers: Richard Mastracchio, Steve Swanson

Expedition 39 Resources

News Releases

The news releases for Expedition 39 covering a variety of mission events and other activities both on Earth and in space.

The sun's first rays burst over the Earth's horizon

Mission Summary

Get an overview of the Expedition, its crew and the activities they are working on during this mission to the International Space Station.

The Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction (SoFIE) Growth and Extinction Limits (GEL) experiment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) studies flame growth and extinction in an effort to improve fire safety in space. This image shows a sequence of snapshots taken about 3 seconds apart. During this test point, the ambient oxygen concentration starts relatively high (28%). Initially, the flame is seen as yellow and sooty. As the ambient pressure is reduced, the flame becomes bluer and continues to shrink until fully extinguished. This gives researchers pressure limit data points for flame extinction that could help improve crew and spacecraft safety for future exploration missions.

Mission Science

Explore hands-on activities, interactive, lesson plans, educator guides, and other downloadable content about this topic.

One of the Expedition 41 crew members aboard the International Space Station, flying at an altitude of 222 nautical miles above a point in the Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles off the coast of Africa near the Tropic of Cancer, photographed this eye-catching panorama of the night sky and the Milky Way on Sept. 27. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, flight engineer, tweeted the image, which was taken with an electronic still camera, set with a 24mm focal length. In his accompanying comments, Wiseman stated, "Sahara sands make the Earth glow orange."

Mission Imagery

During Expedition 39, the crew took images of the Earth views, the orbiting station, their daily lives aboard and the experiments they conducted during their stay, plus so much more. Check out some of the image highlights from Expedition 39 in the gallery.